To victor goes the spoils
Kellan came across this great blog post on branding for bxc. Quark, an aging layout program, has launched their new brand identity as part of a campaign to fight Adobe's massacre of all competitors. Adobe bought Macromedia back in April and retired Fireworks, Freehand, etc.
Unfortunately, in this age of globalization it is obvious when you do not do your homework. Quark's new logo bears a resemblance to a dozen companies.
posted by jazz @ 11:26 AM
2 Comments:
When I first got an e-mail from Quark proudly touting their new branding, I cringed at their glaring desperation. Later, when I found out about the Scottish Arts Council issue, I just felt bad for the designer, who I'm sure came up with this having no idea that such a thing as the Scottish Arts Council even existed. Realistically, how was he or she supposed to find out about the existence of that logo during the design process? You can sift through the Library of Congress web site (an extremely tedious task), but I'd have just looked at all the Q logos and felt satisfied.
Technically the logo is legal, from what I know about copyright law, because there's no overlap in what the two organizations do. But it's truly embarrassing for Quark in so many ways.
Whenever I have to do logos, I honestly get a little scared. How much homework do I have to do to make sure my brain didn't design the same shape as someone else did ten or forty or whatever years ago? Do I charge the client for the time I spend on this research, or as a designer am I expected to have a comprehensive sense of Logos Of The World? It ain't easy!
It is definitely hard to balance research/design time if the client is not willing to see the value. In general, the more high profile the client the more time should be spent on research. There are external firms that can be contracted to research on the client's behalf.
This article on logo research might be helpful:
http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/23415.html
Post a Comment
<< Home